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The Chip Board Archive 23

Buying on eBay

I don’t know if I am a typical ebay chip buyer or not – but I do purchase many $1 chips on the site. I thought I would throw together a few suggestions/observations that would certainly assist me in buying more of what sellers are selling:

1) Clearly state your multiple chip shipping policy. When buying chips that sell in the $1-$6 range, the shipping cost is a critical factor in making a bidding decision.

2) Do not include the shipping charges in the price – this precludes me from bidding on multiple chips at one time, as I am not getting any multiple chip shipping discounts. I might purchase one chip I am particularly interested in, but I would almost never buy more than one as I would feel like I am paying a full shipping charge for each chip.

3) Try and time your auctions ending times to be fairly close – but not too close. Optimally 3-5 minutes apart. When you have multiple auctions over 2-3 days, I tend to lose interest and bid less, mostly because I don’t know if I am buying multiple chips. Auctions that are too close together, don’t give buyers enough time to push up the price by sniping.

4) Once I win one chip - I will likely pay a bit of a higher price for additional chips from the same seller with a good shipping discount as the average price per chip is lowered. If you list your lower priced chips first you might snag me into buying some more moderately priced chips, or at least multiple chips.

5) I generally don’t even look at sets of chips bundled together. I suppose there are some sets that work well together – like all the AC chips in one bunch, but on average, just putting 2 or 3 chips randomly in a set I doubt helps you get your best price. I know there are some collectors that are interested in multiple chips from the same casino, but I think there are many more collectors that collect by denomination, so bundling by casino is probably not a good idea either.

6) Try and show the actual chip in the picture – and if the two sides are different, then show both. If it is not the actual chip shipped – state it clearly.

7) List the denomination in the auction title – this helps me find your chip quicker.

8) Maybe obvious – but the better quality the scan , the more likely I am to bid on the chip.

9) ebay is an AUCTION site – which means you want to get bidders excited about what you are selling.
Moderately priced chips ($5-$20) that are listed at lower prices often get a lot of attention and end up getting bid up higher than they would otherwise.

Messages In This Thread

Buying on eBay
good observations
Your #6 is most important
Re: Buying on eBay

Copyright 2022 David Spragg